Enter The Matrox

That exceedingly sensible Canadian graphics card company Matrox is at it again. Once considered in the same wacky breath as ATI, nVidia and 3dfx (the latter’s revolutionary Voodoo card largely responsible for its retreat from games before 3dfx itself then fell to nVidia), it now concentrates on the professional market and a pretty good job it does too.

(Image:G550)

Its latest offering is a world first: the world’s first low profile PCI Express card. Called the Millenium G550 LP (low profile) PCIe it still packs quite a lot of power bringing dual display functionality to the workplace.

On top of this, the G550 LP is equipped with a perfectly business-adequate 32MB of onboard DDR RAM, adopts the company’s Clone and Multi-Display Zoom functionality and supports resolutions up to a whopping 2048 x 1536. A copy of PowerDesk SE is bundled to enable the suited and booted bridge to mess with their settings and then log calls with Tech Support, while installation and maintenance should be simple using the company’s unified and WHQL-certified drivers.

Out by the end of this month, the G550 LP PCIe is priced at a reasonable $169 and is expected to hit these shores costing just short of a tonne. I do wish Matrox would enter the gaming market again though, if only because it is a much easier name to make headlines from than either ATI or nVidia.